Apple Computer's announcement of new Macs based on processors from Intel raises an interesting question: Since both the Mac and Windows operating systems now run on Intel-based hardware, shouldn't it be easy to run both on the same computer? That simple question deserves a simple answer. But there isn't one - at least not right now. Reaching the nirvana of running the two most popular desktop operating systems on one machine is a lot harder than you might expect.

Itanium uses EFI. Windows boots on that just fine. I doubt it'd take much to make a future version of Windows for x86 boot.

It's not likely to happen anytime soon, but if Microsoft were to find value in ditching the current PC bios in favor of something more modern, an available platform would give them extra leverage to initiate change.